Diagnosis of Diseases Through Ages

Diagnosis of diseases in the past involved very primitive equipments Cutting edge technology as is seen today was not heard of in the past KG Hospital when established in the year 1974 had very few gadgets to diagnose equipments However every effort was made to import advanced and sophisticated equipments as were available in the West so as to make available to the patients the best diagnosis on par with the west
Changing demographic profile with increasing old age populations increasing incidences of life style diseases like cancer CNS and diabetics are some of the relevant factors
For a long time India was closed to many foreign markets through government protectionism and a nationalistic tariff system However today India is ripe for market entry for many industries including medical devices and medical diagnostics India is booming since the 1990 From 1996 to 2006 GDP grew at an average rate of 7 GDP is still not slowing down
India is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for medical devices medical diagnostics and pharmaceuticals The market is very dynamic and is expected to grow around 25 annually The Government of India is aware that for achieving healthcare goals increased foreign involvement is necessary especially in hightechnology and highly specialized areas viz equipment for plastic surgery cancer diagnosis and medical imaging The Indian doctors favour foreign technology ie products from the USA and Europe The three largest medical device exporters to India are Germany Japan and the USA
Until the 1980s governmentrun hospitals and others which were operated by charitable organizations were the main providers of healthcare in India However over the past ten years corporate and other private hospitals have begun to emerge as a significant part of the Indian healthcare system
Listed below are some of the major diagnostic equipments
Anaesthesia equipment
BP monitor
BP apparatus
Colour Doppler
Xray machine
ECG machine
Echo machine
Baby incubator
ENT equipment
Fetal heart monitor
Glucometer
Laryngoscope
Medical thermometer
Medical weighing scale
Ophthalmic equipment
Pulse oximeter
Sphygmomanometer
Spirometer
Stethoscope
Microscope
Ultrasound
Imaging technology has revolutionized healthcare Today we have the state of the art CT scan equipment MRI machine and CathLab These equipments are now available in Indian hospitals and patients no longer need to go abroad for undergoing diagnostic tests and treatments Much more the costs of diagnosis and treatment have substantially come down due to the large volume of patients being seen in India and due to the availability of sophisticated equipments in all hospitals
Cancer Diagnostic Equipment There are excellent opportunities for India to get cancer diagnostic equipments from abroad In the year 1992 cancer was the sixth leading cause of death and in that year the market for cancer diagnostic equipment reached almost 13 million In the past cancer awareness was confined to a small urban population Due to the significant educational efforts put in the Indian Cancer Association more and more Indians both urban and rural are now concerned about cancer The cancer diagnostic equipment market is dominated by overseas companies In order to facilitate market entry many foreign companies entered into agreements with Indian manufacturers to make their products locally One of the most successful of these arrangements is between General Electric Medical Systems of USA and Wipro of India Today WiproGE exports the Indianmade products to South Asia Other companies like Larsen amp Toubro for various types of diagnostic equipments Blue Star for whole body CT cardiovascular and general angiography systems special purpose xray machines MRI scanners biochemistry haematology and other analytical products EEG monitors WiproGE Systems Hewlett Packard range of analytical instruments and equipment from Beckman BioRad Becton Dickinson and Serono Diagnostics Medical Coordinators Private Limited ultrasound scanners cardiology equipment endoscopes Toshniwal Brothers MRI and CT whole body scanners angiography systems
Market amp Growth Drivers The global clinical diagnostic market is growing at a single digit The sub segment called the molecular diagnostic market is poised for an unprecedented growth Nucleic acid testing genomics proteomics and pointofcare testing capabilities are expected to promote innovative and better diagnostic tests Additionally with advances in new technologies clinicians are better equipped to evaluate diseases and other medical conditions
Applications Applications of human diagnostic kits are in the areas of
Research
Clinical Assays
Tissue typing
Immunodiagnosis
Blood grouping
Detection of pregnancy
HIVAIDS
TB
Malaria
Typhoid
Hepatitis B
Amoebiasis
Fliariasis
Major manufacturers in India
In the diagnostics segment in India the major manufacturers are
Wipro GE
LampT
Siemens
Philips
Accurex Biomedical Pvt Limited Mumbai
Bhat Biotech India P Limited Bangalore
J Mitra amp Co Delhi
Monozyme India Hyderabad
Span Diagnostics Limited Surat
Beacon Diagnostics
Transasia Biomedicals Limited Mumbai
Tulip Diagnostics P Limited Goa
Xcyton Diagnostics Bangalore
The major global manufacturers of Human Diagnostic kits are
Cromogenix Italy
EuroDiagnostics Netherlands
Trinity Biotech Ireland
Stanbio Laboratory USA
The Department of Biotechnolopgy Government of India has facilitated the transfer of many technologies for diagnostic kits to the industry developed at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research CSIR labs
Growth Drivers
The major growth drivers that affect the market of diagnostic kits are
Increased awareness on health safety and environment
Increasing disposable income of the middle class
Indias economic growth rate and huge population
Import substitution 50 is presently imported that are costlier and also not customdesigned
Indian market is only US 60 million but might growth exponentially It represents only 25 of the overall healthcare market
Favourable lower cost of production can make India a manufacturing hub for diagnostic kits which in turn can be exported to ASEAN US and European markets
Some of the areas that promise high growth rate in this segment are
Rapid cardiac markers
Infectious disease testing
Cholesterol testing
Hepatitis testing
Glucose monitoring
Tumour markers
Rapid coagulation testing
Screening drug abuse
The diagnostic industry is poised for a bright future in the years to come as the series of equipments being manufactured from time to time have been found to benefit mankind by detecting diseases early and helping people to take preventive steps on a timely basis